Cryptic
by SalixMendax
Summary: Skull has a present for Reborn and it wasn't what Reborn was expecting. Reborn does something nice for Skull in return, kinda.


Skull very consciously didn't coil his hands into fists. That kind of tell would make it all too obvious how nervous this venture was making him. He wished there was another way but…

He had checked the cards, cast the runes, drunk enough tea to sink a ship and discretely written to that centaur who owed him a favour. Every single answer had been obscure and made his head hurt but all of them agreed that this was his best option.

But only so long as his trembling hands didn't blow it.

Skull allowed himself one deep, reaffirming breath before pasting on a smile. Everything was normal and nothing was wrong.

"Skull-sama has arrived!" he proclaimed, kicking open the door to a quaint establishment that served excellent coffee. A bell tinkled overhead. Skull bounced into the small café, surrendering to the urge to use the tiles to play hopscotch, and tripped over his feet when his toe stubbed on a tile that wasn't quite flat. Skull shrieked as he fell to the floor, the rolled canvas – that had been tucked under his arm and was almost as big as him – going flying.

Thankfully a slender, red tentacle reached up and caught the precious parcel before it could land in an inconveniently placed mop bucket.

"Thanks, Oodako," Skull burbled, pretending not to see the glare shot at him by the small figure already seated at the only occupied table as he nursed his stinging toe, "You're a life-saver, buddy." Man-baby and octopus shared a watery stare of gratitude.

A bullet shattered the tiles next to Skull's ear, ruining the moment. Skull yelped, scrambling to his feet, and automatically jumped to the side to dodge any follow up shots.

"Lackey," a familiar, menacing, squeaky voice grumbled, but a smirk curved Reborn's lips when Skull scuttled over obligingly.

"Hello, Reborn-sempai," Skull said, sliding into the seat opposite him and offering a blinding smile. He waved his hands excitedly in greeting and Reborn raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Where's my present?" Reborn said bluntly, cutting off Skull's excited chatter about how good it was to see him, how've you been sempai, have you done anything fun, I've got a new job recently, how about you?

"Aah, here it is!" Skull exclaimed, taking the roll of canvas from Oodako and passing it over. Looking down with faux-shyness, Skull added, "Happy Birthday, even if it's a little bit early. I hope you like it, sempai."

"We'll see, lackey," Reborn said, tilting his fedora noncommittally as he tucked the gift into his jacket pocket. No one commented on that improbable bending of the laws of physics. Reborn followed no laws but his own.

"Waa," Skull wailed, taking Reborn's indifference as his cue to act up, "Sempai doesn't love me anymore!" He flailed his arms again, accidently knocking Reborn's coffee off the table. The hot liquid went flying everywhere and settled in a shirt-staining splatter down Reborn's front. Predictably Leon jumped down from his perch on Reborn's hat and into his human's waiting hand.

"Lackey," Reborn said, smooth as silk and Leon's green firing mechanism, "run."

Skull was immortal, not stupid. He ran.

* * *

After seeing off Skull, who had been acting even more bratty than usual, Reborn took a moment to mourn his sacrificed coffee before wandering away from the café. He ducked across three busy train lines and a bus route to lose any pursuers then snuck out the back of a toy shop to distract the little cow brat who had been stalking him on and off for almost a month. Satisfied that he was no longer being followed, Reborn scaled a building and leapt across the rooftops until he reached his third favourite safehouse.

It was a clean, airy room, if a little lacking in natural light due to the ridiculously tiny windows. They were defensible though and the security system was top notch. The white walls gave an impression of space and the carpet was wonderfully thick and a bright, cheery, blood-hiding crimson. The fresh, earthy scents from the florists below wafted into the room in summer but never so strong that Reborn would miss an aerated attack. Yes, Reborn liked this safehouse.

In the relative safety of his current home, Reborn finally allowed himself to unwrap the present Skull had given him. Since Skull knew exactly when Reborn's birthday was and normally sent him a deliciously homemade devil's food cake, Reborn had to assume that the brat had been trying to 'subtly' hint that something was different about this gift when compared to the usual bribes.

He would also assume for the moment that Skull's strangely deliberate flailing actually meant something in whichever sign language he had used. Reborn thought it might be BSL, which was delightfully messy depending on where you learnt it, but that wouldn't explain where Skull picked it up. As far as Reborn knew Skull was Russian.

Ignoring the scary implication that the lackey might have got one over on Viper, Reborn deposited Leon on the table so he could watch Reborn at work.

Finally unpicking the string that held the canvas closed, Reborn saw it was a generically classical painting of Narcissus and Echo, probably expensive but nothing Reborn couldn't steal for himself. Humming thoughtfully Reborn turned it over and looked closely at the borders of the canvas.

"Aha," Reborn muttered noticing something that shouldn't have been there. A string of letters, seemingly random, lined the edge that would have been inside the roll, so small and tightly packed they were almost illegible.

"Z – W – A – Q – A – Q – C – B – P – R – P – E – E – H – G." Reborn read the first line, tapping his chin thoughtfully, "This may take a while to translate."

Leon blinked questioningly.

"Of course, I know the cypher," Reborn said, scribbling down the meaning of the hand signs Skull had made when he was babbling. "Grid down 7 C-H-A-O-S-F-I-R-E read across," Reborn said, scoffing at the simplicity, "My respect for the brat has diminished if this is his best replacement for the pacifier light. Actually, why wouldn't he use the pacifier?" Reborn wondered out loud.

Leon blinked again, this time conveying impatience and curiosity.

"Right, deciphering," Reborn said, working quickly through the block of text. He tapped his chin again upon finishing. "How do you feel about a trip to Britain, Leon?" He had a very nice safe house in Birmingham. Not as nice as his current safehouse but it had fantastic access routes to the rest of the country, if you could avoid the roadworks.

Leon shrugged as much as a chameleon can and leapt from the desk back onto Reborn's fedora.

* * *

Skull kept forgetting to breathe. Every second he kept expecting the Boss to call him into his office and tell Skull they'd figured out what he had done. That they had enacted the consequences and Skull was even more trapped than before. It was only long practice of living with such fear looming over his head that kept him acting normally. Besides, Reborn was the best, especially when he was being paid.

Skull was in the middle of a 'mission' briefing when the call came. He watched as the Commander of the Carcassa Ground Troops went pale then pasty then crimson. The cruel, musclebound man mouthed silently, like he'd forgotten how to speak, and flopped into his chair, trembling so much the desk rattled as he offered the receiver to Skull. Skull glanced at the screen, saw the familiar string of numbers and pressed it desperately to his ear.

"Reborn-sempai?" Skull hated how weak his voice sounded, how his tiny hands were clenched so tight he could see his tiny knuckles.

"The objective is complete," the squeaky voice informed him, "We will be talking about this, lackey."

"I know," Skull said, closing his eyes as relief and jumbled hope washed through him, "See you soon, sempai." The call ended and Skull dropped the receiver without a second thought.

"What did the Great Reborn want with you?" the Commander asked, an odd mixture of disgusted – as he always was when talking to Skull – and reverent – which meant he was a fanboy of Reborn, which Skull really would never understand.

"I quit," Skull told the Commander flatly, "I hope your entire Family burns in hell." Then he wandered out the base, leaving behind strange floods, rodent infestations and building-wide computer malfunctions.

The next time he was coherently aware, Skull found himself leaning against a wall, face pressed into his forearms and the cold scent of unsympathetic stone and rotting rubbish filling his nose. Anyone could slip into this ally and stab him in the back, but Skull didn't care. His godson was safe. Teddy was safe. For a moment Skull let himself be Harry, who had been so worried about his godson, his only family that it had taken all the self-restraint he didn't know he had to refrain from apparating over there and killing the blackmailing bastards himself.

A laugh bubbled in his throat, but it sounded more like a sob. It felt like he was sobbing too. The sleeves of his leather suit were getting damp and his shoulders were twitching and jerking against his will.

Skull pressed more weight against the unyielding wall, letting it hold up his traitorous body. He couldn't be crying. He wasn't allowed to cry when things were all alright now.

"Lackey, what are you doing?"

Skull didn't look up. He knew that voice. He knew if he looked then he would see Reborn watching him have a breakdown in a dirty alleyway. If he didn't look then he could pretend he wasn't embarrassing himself for a few minutes longer.

Warm hands settled on Skull's hunched shoulders and Skull let himself be pulled away from his little huddle of safety. He braced automatically for the blow, for the lecture, and pre-emptively tried to wrestle his turbulent emotions into something a little more resembling normal. He was surprised when, instead of hitting him, the hands pulled him into a solid, silk-clad chest.

This, this couldn't be right. No one touched Skull without intending to hurt him. People didn't just hug Skull, especially not Reborn.

But he was, and he was rubbing Skull's back like, like he cared and that wasn't right.

What was happening?

* * *

Reborn knew that Skull wouldn't have gone far. For all his unpredictability, it was surprisingly easy to guess what the brat would do after escaping captivity. Any normal Cloud would want to get as far away from their captor (or their captor's remains) as soon as possible. That would mean the Carcassa were watching all the roads, train stations and bus stops, if they were smart (which was questionable, since they thought they could get away with threatening the civilian who managed to keep up with _Reborn, _and there were a lot of mafasio who couldn't do that).

But Skull was smart too. He could more patient than any other Cloud Reborn had met so he would wait, somewhere hidden but nearby. No one would expect him to be somewhere so obvious.

Naturally he was in the third alley Reborn checked.

He was… crying. That was not what Reborn had been expecting. Reborn had been expecting euphoric enthusiasm, sheepish gratitude maybe, and perhaps a touch of dread when he remembered how much he owed Reborn now.

Instead he was leaning against a dirty alley wall, sobbing noiselessly amongst the oozing, stinky binbags. Reborn cursed Skull's unpredictability.

Instead of turning to greet him, wiping away the tears and snot so he could pretend he hadn't been caught crying, Skull slumped even more, a new tension falling into the set of his shoulders.

"Lackey, what are you doing?" Reborn demanded when it became clear that Skull hadn't noticed he was there. Skull twitched but didn't move.

Skull physically couldn't stop crying, Reborn realised, which meant the situation was more complex than Reborn had first assumed. He'd seen Skull cry before, big fat tears with wailing sobs when he fell or was insulted or couldn't dodge fast enough. He's never seen Skull cry as desperately as he was now.

Reaching over, Reborn pulled Skull away from the wall enough to see his face. The makeup Skull took so much pride in was smeared and his cheeks were damp and shiny. He'd screwed his eyes closed and his arms were still held as they were when Skull had been using them as a cushion. The gesture looked strangely defensive.

Cursing his own soft-heartedness, Reborn pulled Skull into a hug, grimacing when his snotty, pointy nose dug into Reborn's expensive suit jacket. Skull… didn't respond. Reborn hadn't been expecting him to sink gratefully into the cuddle but he'd been expecting something more than this.

Skull was frozen, not moving, stiff, like he was... He was probably expecting to be hurt or pushed away or both, Reborn thought gloomily, which was a shame since Reborn was being nice for once.

Gently, Reborn rubbed Skull's back, wanting to see if that would make him relax a little. Instead Skull went even more still, if that was possible, and Reborn could practically feel the bewilderment radiating off him. Reborn wondered, for the first time, when the last time someone had done something nice for Skull was. People did nice things for Reborn all the time, even if it was only because they didn't want to be on his bad side. Skull didn't have that buffer of ingrained fear in the masses, didn't have any friends apart from Oodako.

Reluctantly Reborn resigned himself to checking in on the brat occasionally, since he obviously couldn't look after himself. It would look bad for Reborn if one of the Strongest Seven got themselves killed out of stupidity. It wasn't like he felt sorry for the kid or anything.

* * *

**AN: Only my second published story and I've already jumped on the Skull-is-Harry bandwagon. I'd like to think I did something at least a little bit original. I've got ideas for a second chapter to this, but I doubt I'll ever write them down. Expect to see more from both these fandoms (though not necessarily together... or soon).**

**I hope you enjoyed. Just let me know if I was a little to cryptic; I self-edit so no one else has seen this before I published.**

**Also, since it's there and convenient, first person to work out what Skull's message says (the bit Reborn reads out in capitals) and lets me know gets a shout out in my next fic.**

**Until next time, Sal xx**


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